Lots of Lists

Wednesday, April 27, 2016

Disney has a bunch of open dates on their upcoming schedule. They released a list of the live-action fairytales they currently had in development. This helps to decipher what might go into those dates.

Jungle Book 2 would go into the April 2018 slot. That is two years away and Favreau and the writer Justin Marks are already on board to continue the story. The Jungle Book left it open for more of Kipling's jungle stories. Releasing it around in April again makes a lot of sense.

I would expect Nutcracker and the Four Realms to be released on November of 2018. The Nutcracker Suite is so associated with Christmas that a November release date makes sense. This is one of the few projects to have a director not associated with several other projects. Lasse Hallstrom can work on this soon.

There is a Disneytoon Movie schedule on April 2019. Disneytoon is not as active as it once was with Disney sequels. It has really only created Tinker Bell and Planes movies recently. I think Disney wants their animation studio to keep making original movies that can create their own brands. This gives Frozen 2 a theatrical release without having to slow down their main studio.

I will put A Wrinkle in Time in the November 2019 slot. It is going to be directed by Ava DuVernay, but she will be busy with Intelligent Life in 2017. Wrinkle will need two years of her time and around winter is a good release date for it.

The sequel to Mary Poppins will be released the following month, December 2019. They have Rob Marshall, Lin-Manuel Miranda and Emily Blunt attached and you need to release this during Oscar season. Expect a firm announcement when Moana is released.

2018 has two live-action films with release dates. These are not designated as fairytales so they must be something different. Jungle Cruise might qualify and this would have to be a summer movie. Expect the Dwayne Johnson vehicle to be released on August 2018.

That means that December 2018 must be Colin Trevorrow's Star Wars Episode IX. I wouldn't expect it to be released the same year as a Han Solo anthology film. Episode IX had previously been dated for December 2019, but there is a Disney fairytale there right now. Disney must want to release two Star Wars films in one year. Not sure if that is the best idea, but there must be some reasoning behind it.

So that leaves July 2017 with one more Disney live-action fairytale release date. The only remaining films I don't have slotted are Maleficent 2, Tim Burton's Dumbo, Tink starring Reese Witherspoon
and Cruella. I am going with Cruella, it doesn't seem like a summer film but Dumbo would take more than a year of production and Maleficent will take longer to schedule. It is too close to Pan for Tink and Emma Stone is a better star to attach yourself to than Reese Witherspoon at this point. Cruella will have less special effects and it has been trending this week. So expect some sort of 101 Dalmatians prequel next summer.

Other release dates are for Pixar and Disney Animation in 2020. I expect those to be original films. Some may be projects we have heard about (Disney may release their Galactic, teen space race film). But for the Marvel films that year I would guess Guardians vol. 3 for May 2020 and Doctor Strange 2 for November 2020. Black Panther might need a sequel too, Captain Marvel can wait a year. Inhumans might go in July, unless Marvel Studios has given up on that project. There is always a chance Marvel will get Fantastic Four by then, but I will have to wait to find out for sure.

So the final schedule will probably look like:
July 2017- Cruella
April 2018- Jungle Book 2
August 2018- Jungle Cruise
November 2018- Nutcracker and the Four Realms
December 2018- Star Wars Episode IX
April 2019- Frozen 2
November 2019- A Wrinkle in Time
December 2019- Mary Poppins II
May 2020- Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 3
July 2020- Inhumans
November 2020- Doctor Strange 2

Thursday, March 17, 2016

I have never had the opportunity to see one of Jason Reitman's Live Read shows, but I love the concept. Live Read is a series of staged readings of film scripts. I love looking at the cast lists on Wikipedia and picturing how the film would work with different actors. During spare time I enjoy creating my own cast lists. My unique challenge for myself is not to use the same actor twice. Hope you enjoy the cast lists, might keep adding to this page as I come up with more.

Friday, July 24, 2015

Movies in
Fargo-Moorhead theatres have a weird cycle.Usually the two first run theatres share around 8-10 movies.If one of those movies does not do big
numbers it will be gone before you know it.Then there is a small chance film print might come to our discount
theatre a month or two later.This run
down theatre will keep around five movies of its seven movies for three to five
months.Meaning that discount theatre
has a very slow rotation.So if you miss
a movie at the main theatre, which gets rid of them too fast, you are going to
have to wait a while in the hopes that the cheap seats get it for a little
while.I was excited to see that the
cheap theatre just got Tomorrowland, because I have really wanted to see it
again.

Tomorrowland
was not a success.It ranks among the
biggest box-office bombs of all time, only making a little over $200 million
worldwide on a $190 million budget.Reviews have also been lukewarm.People don’t hate it, but not many are excited about it.

I am in the minority that loved
Brad Bird’s sci-fi throwback.I am a
lifelong Disney die-hard and I found this movie to be one that Walt would be
proud of.The values of Tomorrowland are
so in line with the enthusiasm and ambition behind the Disneyland TV series and
the original concept for EPCOT.All of
the ties to the 1964 World’s Fair made me so happy.

I honestly loved the movie.Clooney paid a grizzled inventor perfectly,
never once coming across as a suave movie star.Raffey Cassidy also created one of the most memorable characters of the
year and is the best child actor The Walt Disney Company has introduced in a
very long time.But above all the movie
had a big, hopeful feel to it.It got me
thinking, feeling and dreaming.Which is
the exact experience I personally want from a movie, especially on the big
screen.

That is not to say that the movie
is not without its flaws.I think that
the structure of the movie is a little sloppy.The narration and banter between Clooney and Britt Robertson slowed the
start of the movie down.It would have
had a tighter opening had the World’s Fair was just followed by Casey’s
journey.But the failure of Tomorrowland
really has less to do with the movie itself and more to do with the marketing,
budget and role as a tentpole.

Marketing really should not factor
into experiencing the film itself.However with the Internet providing more access to marketing and a venue
to analyze it, many audiences have their minds made up before they see the movie.I have a hunch that a lot of reviews are
written after the trailer is released.Which is not necessarily fair, but this is the modern movie going
experience and studios need to do a better job selling the movie because that
can affect everything.

Tomorrowland took a mystery box
approach in its trailers.It alluded to
some sort of twist that you could only find out by seeing the movie.This misled critics into expecting a
different experience.While Tomorrowland
has surprises it is a very straightforward family movie.Which is not the easiest sell for a big
budget tentpole, but then again why did this have to be an event movie?

It is admirable that Disney put so
much of a push and money behind an original movie that was helmed by a creator
they believe in.However Hollywood keeps
making the same mistake of throwing loads of money at a hopeful franchise and
burdening it with the expectations of a tentpole.I hope to do another post on this trend, but
the bottom line is that these movies almost always underperform if not bomb.

Back to the internet affecting the
movie-going experience, we are receiving more and more access to the business
of movie making.Take Ant-Man for
example, a movie that shares Tomorrowland’s point of view.There are people who will never be able to
enjoy that movie because the internet wrote its own narrative about what
happened with Edgar Wright over a year before the movie’s release.Budgets in particular place a big target on a
movie for the internet.We now seem to
be less open to take a movie on its own merits, once we hear about a movie with
a big price tag under performing that is all the news focuses on.The negative press dealing with the money
overshadows the movie itself.

And Tomorrowland honestly did not
need to cost $190 million.This was an
old fashioned Disney adventure based in Cold War sci-fi.The visuals were terrific, but they would
have been just as credible at $100 million or even less (keep in mind I have no
idea how money really works).

The real big thing working against
Tomorrowland in theatres was its position as a tentpole on Memorial
Weekend.It probably still would have
failed at another release date, but expectations of huge success are not good
for original movies.They need time to
be discovered and grow an audience.I
think that Tomorrowland was a great summer move and has a lot of potential to
be a blockbuster.But you can’t count
your eggs before they hatch.This movie
was counted before it hatched.

Again, Tomorrowland is not a
perfect.I love family movies and am big
on Disney lore, it was right up my alley.But this is a movie that does not deserve the different reputation of a
failure.I hope you will catch this at
your discount theatre, it is ambitious and has its heart in the right
place.Which is as good of a reason to
make and attend a movie as any.

Wednesday, March 25, 2015

This is an odd concept, but lately I have been thinking about the Fox Box. I was never a huge viewer, although I watched a lot of their Ninja Turtles. But the Fox Box (later 4Kids TV) began at a shift in Saturday mornings. 2002 was when Fox Kids closed, One Saturday morning became ABC Kids, ABC Family created a great action block, among other changes across the networks. I was a kid at the time and paid a lot of attention to changes in Saturday morning. Back then, to me anyways, Saturdays were a time when networks would put effort into children's programming and you would see things you wouldn't during the rest of the week. I am nostalgic towards a lot of it, even if I was never big on the programs themselves.

But anyways, the odd concept I have been working on lately has been a fantasy rescheduling of the first few years of The Fox Box. I feel that, while 4Kids made many mistakes (many legal mistakes), their cartoon block could have gotten a much better start. So here is my fantasy line-up for the first three seasons of the Fox Box.

Season 1 (2002-2003)

The biggest mistake 4Kids made was that they kept their familiar properties on a rival network. While I am sure that Kids' WB held their PokeRights pretty closely back then, 4Kids really should have tried to use Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh! and Cubix to launch their network. 4Kids could have also reran the Indigo League episodes under the title PokeClassics instead of letting Cartoon Network do the same a year later. This would all be similar to how Kids' WB brought over Animaniacs, Batman and Tiny Toons from Fox Kids. 4Kids should have also premiered the block with Ninja Turtles as their big new show instead of waiting until midseason. Ultimate Muscle and Kirby would have been the same as those two shows worked. I would also keep Ultraman Tiga, but with a better dub. This is was a chance at a new Power Rangers with a marketable character, but the jokes were unbearable and out of place. 4Kids was also syndicating Tama and Friends around this time, they could have used that as a replacement for either Cubix or PokeClassics later in the season. I would just leave off Stargate Infinity and Fighting Foodons altogether.

The Initial Schedule (in central time)

7:00 PokeClassics (favorite episodes!)

7:30 Cubix: Robots for Everyone (new to Fox!)

8:00 Kirby, Right Back at Ya! (new series!)

8:30 Ultraman Tiga (new series!)

9:00 Pokemon Master Quest (new season!)

9:30 Ultimate Muscle (new series!)

10:00 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (new series!)

10:30 Yu-Gi-Oh! (new season!)

Season 2 (2003-2004)

Ultraman Tiga, PokeClassics and Cubix would all leave the schedule. Kirby, Ultimate Muscle, Ninja Turtles and Yu-Gi-Oh! would stay. This season would see the premiere of Pokemon Advanced. I would not include Funky Cops or The Cramp Twins, but Shaman King and Sonic X would be the new series. I would also add the TV premiere of Homestar Runner. By 2003 there were enough shorts of the popular webtoon to create a TV anthology. I am really surprised that there was never a successful attempt at bringing H*R to television. 4Kids would not play any role in the creation, the Brothers Chaps would create their own package and format for the network that needed a solid comedy, broader audience and something topical.

The Initial Schedule (in central time)

7:00 Kirby, Right Back at Ya! (new season!)

7:30 Ultimate Muscle (new season!)

8:00 Pokemon Advanced (new season!)

8:30 Homestar Runner (new to TV!)

9:00 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (new season!)

9:30 Sonic X (new season!)

10:00 Yu-Gi-Oh! (new season!)

10:30 Shaman King (new series!)

Season 3 (2004-2005)

The Adrenaline Project would never air on the network and the Fox Box name would remain. Ultimate Muscle and Shaman King would leave the schedule (but still come back for midseason replacements). Leaving Kirby, Ninja Turtles, Yu-Gi-Oh!, Sonic X and Homestar as the returning hits while the PokeFranchise would enter Advanced Challenge. Winx Club would still be the big new show for the season. 4Kids would also pick up Spider-Man: The New Animated Series after MTV failed it. This may be an odd fit as the series was a little more mature, but look at what the censors let TMNT get away with, Sony already marketed Spidey DVDs to kids anyways. This would start a relationship with Sony that could lead to Astro Boy and others. Spidey would bring a familiar character, a better chance for a good show and a challenge the idea of what 4Kids is.

The Initial Schedule (in central time)

7:00 Kirby, Right Back at Ya! (new season!)

7:30 Winx Club (new series!)

8:00 Pokemon Advanced Challenge (new season!)

8:30 Yu-Gi-Oh! (new season!)

9:00 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (new season!)

9:30 Sonic X (new season!)

10:00 Homestar Runner (new to TV episodes!)

10:30 Spider-Man: The New Animated Series (new to Fox!)

Which would bring us to the point where Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh!'s popularity was dying down anyway. So what do you think? It is of course easy to look back and say, "this is what you should have done!" But it is always fun to look back and think about what if.